Nerd Nite 84

Pop Culture Potpourri

We’ve got a great lineup for you for the last show before our winter break! What do we get from schlocky TV shows like “Supernatural”? How do modern board game makers use 3D printing in their design process? How does indie video game development happen? Is learning more fun while drinking? Get your answers on November 28th!

Glenna Schowalter: Exposing the Guts and Wires of Supernatural

In a world saturated with high quality television, why would someone choose Supernatural as the focus of their master’s thesis? Learn what mediocre media can teach us and get the inside scoop on grad school.

Glenna Schowalter is a writer, performer, and theatre technician based in Edmonton. She has a Master of Arts in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Alberta, which inspired this talk. These days she performs with Sorry, Not Sorry Improv doing all kinds of nerdy comedy, including a format that she designed inspired by — you guessed it — Supernatural. You can also find her streaming on Twitch once a week.

Facebook: Glenna Schowalter
Instagram: @glenna_ghostie

Tyler Anderson: Evolution of the Modern Boardgame Designer

With the advent of 3D printing, the monopoly on boardgame creation has been broken! In this presentation we discuss the history of boardgame design and the impact that modern technology has had on empowering creative people to express their ideas in the exciting medium of board games!

Tyler Anderson is an avid board gamer whose history ranges from playing Magic the Gathering competitively to producing board games that have been Kickstarted. He has a deep interest in the functional and mechanistic ways that board games work.

Twitter: @3dprintersaur

Madison Côté & Derek Kwan: Why Independent Game Developers (Indies) are the Future of Game Development

No matter what your creative inclinations are, we believe that everyone can make games. Whether you are a programmer, artist, writer, musician, project manager, marketer, designer, and anything in-between–everyone has the capacity to contribute to amazing games. However, making games of any type is VERY DIFFICULT, and being “indie” (independent game developers) is the hard mode of game development. We believe that indies are one of the most important parts of our game development ecosystem in Alberta, so we are finding ways to support our local indies and to inspire nerds like you to create games yourself! If you love playing cool and interesting games — or if you have ever thought about making games — come listen to this talk!

Madison Côté and Derek Kwan are the humans behind Interactive Arts Alberta, a non-profit based in Edmonton that supports Alberta’s game development ecosystem. Since 2014, Interactive Arts Alberta has supported local game developers by building capacity for games culture and game development in the province. Together, they curate the Game Discovery Exhibition (GDX), North America’s largest indie games festival, as well as its conference which hosts topics such as Indie Dev, AI/ML in Games, Building a Better Games Industry, and Indigeneity and Diaspora in Games. Recently, they launched the “Walkthrough Collaborative Centre” on Whyte Ave, a donation-based community hub for indie game developers to collaborate and connect.

Madison and Derek are also 2/6ths of their indie studio, Cozy Comet Games… making cute and cozy games to play while wrapped up in a blanket and drinking a warm cup of cocoa.

Bluesky: @iaalberta.bsky.social / @madisonrcote.bsky.social / @ricerocketeer.bsky.social
Instagram: @iaalberta / @walkthroughyeg
Facebook – @iaalberta / @walkthroughyeg